The team attempts to extract a rogue A.I. from a child messenger, but the program expands too rapidly. A new Traveler adjusts to his host.

*Trevor takes Philip jogging. He gets a message from Gary, who is on the road to his mother's funeral.

*A school group is being given a tour of a nuclear power plant when evacuation alarms go off. One child (Naomi Gillens) goes into messenger mode and sneaks into the control room to hack in and reboot the system, averting disaster, then collapses in seizure afterwards.

*At the condo in the morning, MacLaren tries to talk to Kat about her avoiding him the night before, but she puts him off and reminds him of their therapy session appointment for the next day.

*Naomi at home with her parents claims to feel fine now, but then starts reciting a string of letters and numbers.

*Traveler-Jeff brings Carly breakfast and asks for her help. He tells her he wasn't sent with a team, but his mission instructions were to get her assistance in learning about original-Jeff. He asks her if she knows what David has been texting him about but she doesn't, then he gets some texts ("don't tell anyone. 34 Howell ave basement") and leaves.

*At HQ, Philip is doing something for MacLaren with a recording of Kat's voice, when they see a message in the Deep Web requesting a programmer for help with a malfunctioning A.I. MacLaren and Carly take Grace (as "FBI Specialist in socially inappropriate behavior") to Naomi's home. Grace says there's an interrupted program inside the girl's brain which hasn't completed its end script, and has her look at coding on her tablet to force a reset, and Naomi appears to snap out of it.

*Marcy spies on David and hears him buying a gun.

*At night as Naomi's father says her prayers with her, she starts reciting computer code again then snaps back to normal, but in the morning starts writing in code.

*Jeff arrives at the basement address, and helps set up chairs for a meeting, which turns out to be a support group for people who believe the Travelers are real and harmful.

*MacLaren, Carly, and Grace return to the Gillens' and find a priest performing an exorcism. Grace tries again to end the AI with tablet code, but Naomi goes into stronger seizures. MacLaren tries to convince Mr. Gillens that he needs to let the team take Naomi away to a restricted FBI facility, but when he tries to kick the team out Mrs. Gillens sedates him, revealing herself to be Traveler 5322, the one who put out the call for a programmer when her team's medic couldn't figure out how to fix Naomi.

*At HQ, Marcy runs more tests. Naomi's consciousness is still intact, but the A.I. is expanding and will overwrite the child in a matter of hours if they can't end it. They inject her with nanites which Grace will program to deactivate the A.I.

*At Carly's, she gives Jeff some of her tactical gear, and some cash to help him get by since he has no historian to fund him.

*At the therapy session, the therapist encourages Kat to tell MacLaren about her visions. When she tries to express how she doesn't feel safe with MacLaren anymore (and he gets commed that the situation with Naomi is getting worse), he flames out of the session.

*A new programmer arrives at HQ and takes a different tack from Grace, making the nanites destroy each other. The team has to hold Naomi down, and Trevor gets bitten by her in the process, and suddenly the nanites and A.I. in Naomi are all gone.

*Marcy comes home to find David with his new gun. She points out that he was cleaning it without realizing it was still loaded, shows him how easily she can disarm him, but he's adamant that since she can't be around at all times to protect him he needs to learn how to protect himself, and she gives in and says she will train him.

*At HQ, Philip continues working on the mystery recording of Kat. When Trevor enters the room, Philip realizes he's been taken over by the A.I. and comms the team. He punches Trevor out to keep him from leaving, and tries to use the defibrillator on him, but A.I.-Trevor comes to and zaps Philip instead. The team pursue and surround A.I.-Trevor outside, and Grace tells it she has a way that both it and the host can survive.

*The group goes to Filmore Labs (and thank Dr. Teslia for not alerting Yates), and the Director speaks to the A.I., offering to give it a space to continue within the Director, and it agrees, and Trevor collapses in overwrite-mode. Grace runs in and asks the Director if it worked, but the Director remains silent.

*Jeff sits in his car and takes a swig of liquor and spits it out, then goes back down to the Traveler-conspiracist support group and acts like the old angry-drunk Jeff, blaming all his problems on Travelers.

*At HQ, Trevor wakes up. Grace says that the Director did to Trevor what she did to Marcy, removing both the A.I. and Trevor's consciousnesses, unbundling them, and sending Trevor back into his host as an overwrite. Trevor tells Grace he has a message from the Director -- a hug.

*At the condo, MacLaren arrives and apologizes to Kat for his therapy session temper tantrum. He shows her Philip's doctored video, which is of Kat agreeing to an experimental memory-inhibiting drug. He claims that she requested it that first time because she'd been traumatized by a terrorist event, and that Ingram used the same drug on her in the kidnapping, which caused her side effects.

*Back at HQ, Philip witnesses Trevor blank out while getting water from the cooler, then snap back not knowing what happened.

Wow, and I thought leaving Gary's furniture on the lawn was cold - Trevor ghosted on his host's own grandmother's funeral? What sociopath of a writer thought that was necessary? I don't understand why they even felt the need to mention Trevor's parents' whereabouts for this episode, but if it was so important for us to know they were out of town, why not send them on a vacation or to a wedding or something where it would be unremarkable for Trevor not to attend as well? What on earth would be Trevor's excuse for not going to the funeral with his parents? They should have killed Trevor's parents off if they so desperately wanted to stop writing for them, that was just bonkers.

Also awful/amusing: David Got A Gun. Followed by Marcy Gives Proper Gun Safety Tips.posted by jenfullmoon at 10:57 PM on December 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I thought that hooking up the Director last episode was hinky (distributing itself!) but it seemed like only (mostly?) just a download dump.

Here, we have evidence that the Director wants to distribute itself, and even across platforms. That the AI is far more clever than Grace's overconfidence give credence for is probably from time shenaniganery, along with "New Jeff's" intro and getting into Trevor.

Whoah. Time travelling AI instructing a future version of a primitive version of itself sent back in time. Deserves to be looped out and pinched off if the mathematics of the Universe is Just.

Grace's obsession with having a "conversation" with the Director?

Their CPR/ AED procedure and the followup are kinda bs.

New Jeff being physically dependent on alcohol is a bit of a retread of Philip's opioid dependency.

Grant's not right.

Christ, David and a firearm.

I *really* liked Marcy's handling of David.

Kinda sympathethic to Grace doing the calculus between "wanting dick"/ and "speak to the Director again." Screw Mac lying to Kat, though.posted by porpoise at 8:47 PM on December 17, 2018

Yeah the whole thing with Mac doing everything to keep Kat was super wrong. I understand Protocol 5 is important but at some point you just gotta cut your losses to focus on the mission. Even Carly is coming around to not worry about Jeffery Jr.

I think New Jeff isn't dependent on alcohol, looks like he took a swig and spat it in a cup so the smell would be on his breath. That's his Protocol 5!

I also really liked how Marcy is treating David. Although his comment of keep his balls in her purse was a little out of character for David who's always seemed to be sensitive enough not to throw those comments out, but I suppose being kidnapped can change your sense of self.posted by numaner at 10:11 PM on December 21, 2018

Oh yeah I was really excited to see Tasya Teles here! Gah I can't wait for The 100 to start up again!posted by numaner at 10:11 PM on December 21, 2018

If Ilsa was completely cut off from the internet in a Faraday cage, how did the Director get a connection to it in the first place?

MacLaren is starting to seem really creepy - less warm and funny, and much more angry and controlling.

Leah Cairns who plays Kat did very nice things with her face as Kat started to accept the story that she had chosen to be drugged, and she trusted her husband again.

Jeff 2.0 still kinda gives me the creeps but I'm not sure if that's residual, or me wondering if he has an evil agenda.

Trevor is my very most favorite so I'm not at all happy to see him still glitching there at the end of this episode.posted by Squeak Attack at 9:14 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]

how did the Director get a connection to it in the first place?

didn't the Director get that connection after the team previously sneaked Grace in and she connected Ilsa to the internet?posted by numaner at 3:15 PM on January 8

No, because the Director asked for Yates and told her about the plane crash to persuade her to try to stop the attacks on the Travelers before our team got involved.posted by Squeak Attack at 6:44 AM on January 9

Oh right, but I think that was a temporary message, not the consciousness of the Director, or something like that. Ilsa itself still has a TELL, and can be used just like any message recipient.posted by numaner at 8:46 AM on January 10

Time travelling AI instructing a future version of a primitive version of itself sent back in time.

Did I miss something, or is that a theory?posted by corb at 3:50 PM on January 21

It's been a while and I don't have access to the episode anymore, but the implication that I saw from the setup is that the AI sent into the past would be stupid not to leave information for past (current future) self to learn.

It's also impossible for the AI that sent (at least an aspect) of itself into the past does't suffer the same causality hangover as the above situation.